


Semaphorism

by gdragondance (xxxibgdrgndnc)



Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: M/M, Other: See Story Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 20:36:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9401984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxxibgdrgndnc/pseuds/gdragondance
Summary: semaphorism:n.a conversational hint that you have something personal to say on the subject but don’t go any further—an emphatic nod, a half-told anecdote, an enigmatic ‘I know the feeling'—which you place into conversations like those little flags that warn diggers of something buried underground: maybe a cable that secretly powers your house, maybe a fiberoptic link to some foreign country.—fromdictionary of obscure sorrowsBased on TOP's 2008 hospitalization/rumored(read it again:rumored)suicide attemptthe night of his 21st birthday. Delves into Daesung's 2011 accident as well.Previously titled "Sending Out an SOS to the World" ontumblr.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I never did like the title I gave it on tumblr (linked above), but I wanted to post it before I chickened out. Reposted here with minor edits. Original post date Jan. 2nd, 2016, but I wrote the majority of it in February-March 2015.
> 
> I've made every effort to tackle the subject matter respectfully, but if you have any questions or concerns, _please_ reach out to me here or on tumblr.
> 
> This fic contains mentions of suicide, depression, substance abuse, and body image issues, all of which make this sound a lot darker than it actually is.

Jiyong is the only one Seunghyun expects to see accompanying the YG rep when he's officially discharged from the hospital.

He's correct. 

Their leader is wearing a brightly colored jacket and ripped jeans, a stark contrast to the suit beside him. But Jiyong isn't there as their leader, he's there as Seunghyun's friend, the only friend in his new life who was there in his old life, the only one who knows the delicate balance between the two Seunghyun struggles to maintain.

Jiyong has seen the ugliest sides of Seunghyun and stood by him through it all.

Seunghyun hopes the worst is behind him when Jiyong throws a supportive arm around his shoulders, and doesn't let go until they climb into the backseat of the car.  


  
* 

* 

*  
  
They're almost back at the dorms, one more traffic light and a left turn to go when Seunghyun says, "Don't tell Daesung."

Jiyong would never, but Seunghyun makes him promise anyway. Maybe one day they would both stop pretending their smiling angel was as innocent as his nickname implied, but right now neither of them can stomach the thought of saying words like "overdose" or "suicide" while looking their dongsaeng in the eye.

Jiyong's phone buzzes in his hand. He looks at the screen, then at Seunghyun. "He wants to know if he can hug you as soon as you walk in the door."

Seunghyun presses his palms into his eyes and nods.

* 

* 

*

They put Seunghyun on actual medication, so he stops using sleeping pills and leftover flu medicine as substitutes. It's working — marginally, but it's working — and he's almost finished with the first month's worth of pills when something that is not a tablet falls from the bottle into his palm.

It's a slip of paper, folded impossibly small.

He uses delicate fingers to open the haphazard folds. Completely unfurled, it has two straight edges and a jagged one, clearly torn from the corner of a sheet of notebook paper. He flips it over, and written in tiny, neat characters is a message:

_You're worth so much, hyung.  
And if you ever need to be reminded of that, please, just come find me._

Seunghyun barely manages to read it a second time before his vision blurs.  
  
* 

* 

*

Seunghyun had expected his dongsaeng to already be in bed, but Daesung's door is open just a crack when he peers inside. He's sitting at his desk, reading something online. 

This makes it harder to walk away.

It had been hard enough to get to this far, out of his bed and down the hall. A bad day turned into a bad week which turned into a bad month and he's starting to think that he's just been taking placebos because he's halfway through his second refill and it isn't making a fucking difference anymore.

Seunghyun tries talking himself out of it, tells himself he shouldn't keep Daesung up later than he already is, but instead of turning around he's pushing the door open wider, striding into the room like he owns the place and situating himself on the far corner of the bed, against the wall, without so much as sparing Daesung a glance.

He digs his iPod out of his sweatshirt pocket, picks a random song and shoves his earbuds in, pulling his knees to his chest and closing his eyes.

Half a minute later the mattress dips beside him, and Seunghyun feels warm fingertips work his left earbud free. He doesn't have to open his eyes to know it finds a home with the small-eyed culprit leaning against him, the one who's probably smiling innocently as he rests his head against Seunghyun's shoulder.

He opens his eyes anyway. 

* 

* 

*

Seunghyun staggers out of his room and into the bathroom. His hand sweeps over the wall until he hits the lightswitch and he lurches towards the sink, running the water and clutching the counter. He cups his hands and sticks them under the stream, drenching the cuffs of his long sleeves, and splashes his face a few times. He fills them once more and takes a small amount in his mouth to swish around before spitting it into the drain.

He snags the hand towel from the hook on the right to dry his face, and when he takes it away he's faced with — just his reflection, thankfully. He'd half expected to see whatever that thing was in his nightmare, that terrorized him and tore him from sleep, lurking behind him. He's thankful that upon waking he forgets what it looks like, but it's always the feeling of the creature that lingers and paralyzes him more than anything else.

It's the third time this has happened in as many nights and he's never taking this medication again, he'll go back to whatever he was on before, hell, Seunghyun would rather have nothing at all than have his head fucked in his sleep when his head's fucked enough while he's awake.

He didn't allow himself to go back to sleep the first two nights, but it's catching up to him now and if he doesn't get some decent rest soon he's going to start seeing these things in broad daylight.

Seunghyun's desperation for sleep overrides any other rational thought as he shuffles down the hall, sleep-addled brain barely registering that Daesung's door is already open when he reaches for the handle. He pushes it enough to slip inside and closes it quietly, letting his eyes readjust to the dark as the warmth of the room settles around him.

Daesung is sound asleep on the edge of the bed, one arm thrown over the pillow and the other tucked under it. Seeing him so comfortable makes Seunghyun think twice about disturbing him, so he lies on the floor, parallel to but facing away from the bed, grabbing a nearby hoodie to ball up and use as a pillow.

"Hyung." There's a gentle tug on Seunghyun's sleeve. "I can move over, you know."

Hearing Daesung's sleepy voice drapes a whole different type of warmth over Seunghyun, one that could threaten to ignite, if he weren't so tired. "I'm okay right here."

A pillow _fwooffs_ on top of his head.

"Then _you_ have to move over."

Seunghyun discovers, as a solid arm wraps around his midsection and slow, even breaths caress the back of his neck, that sleepiness is, in fact, very good kindling.

*

* 

*

Seunghyun's stomach lets out a particularly fierce growl.

He punches it.

Everyone else had gone out to eat; they wanted to try a new ramyun place a few blocks away, but Seunghyun stayed behind, citing a headache and a few lyrics he needed to rework, anyway.

That was three hours ago. They're all holed up in their rooms now, and Seunghyun's fake headache had turned into a real one. He wants to take something for it but knows he shouldn't on an empty stomach, when, ironically, his empty stomach is what's causing the headache in the first place.

Forty days versus four months, it doesn't fucking matter, he's still falling back into the same bad habits — going too long without eating, convincing himself he's not hungry, eating something with the nutritional value equivalent to a pack of saltines, feeling guilty about it, rinse and repeat — he's just taking a little longer this time around, all because _weight gain_ is a possible side effect of his medication.

Seunghyun pokes his head out the door, peering first around the corner at their common area and kitchen to make sure he's the only one up and about, and then at Daesung's door, slightly ajar, at the end of the hall.

He makes his way there and nudges it open further, and Daesung, sitting in the chair at his desk, leans his head back as far as he can until he's peering at Seunghyun upside-down with soft eyes hidden behind an even softer smile.

Seunghyun writes off the acrobatics taking place in his gut as more side effects of hunger and affectionately pats Daesung's cheek before bellyflopping on the bed. He belatedly remembers his iPod in the front pocket of his sweatshirt and rolls on his back to fish it out, cursing when his fingers twist in tangled wires. He sorts them out and pulls up a playlist of songs Jiyong recommended.

He's barely ten seconds into the first song when his stomach resumes digesting itself. Seunghyun turns on his side and curls into the fetal position, but this just makes his insides lurch more, so he shuts his eyes, cranks up the volume, and forces himself to focus on the music.

Halfway through the second song, he catches the unmistakable scent of beef broth.

He opens his eyes. Daesung is readjusting his position at his desk, and there's an open container of leftovers off to the side. He's typing something with one hand, and holding a pair of chopsticks and stirring the steaming contents with the other. Eventually, he picks up a small cluster of noodles and brings them to his mouth.

Seunghyun's stomach caves like a sinkhole.

Daesung swallows and pokes Seunghyun's calf with a chopstick. Seunghyun pretends he isn't salivating over Daesung's midnight snack by letting out an exaggerated sigh and removing one earbud.

"It's cool enough to eat now."

Seunghyun removes the other earbud, puzzled. "What?"

"I left it in the microwave too long, but now it's cool enough to eat without burning your mouth."

It doesn't hit Seunghyun until Daesung turns back to his computer.

"Try not to slurp too much, hyung," Daesung says, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "If I see one drop of that on my blankets I'm going to be really upset with you."

Seunghyun pretends to spill half the bowl, and the laugh he gets from Daesung — after his dongsaeng's momentary panic — is enough to make his stomach do flips for days.

*

* *

* * *

* * 

*

The hand that isn't holding the phone to Seunghyun's ear scrubs over his face.

It's killing him, being away while this is happening, having to hear everything from Jiyong, and now, the day before Seunghyun's scheduled flight back to Korea — back to the dorms, back to Daesung — Jiyong says their dongsaeng is moving back to his parents' house.

"He couldn't wait another day?" It's a stupid, selfish question and Seunghyun hates himself for it.

"This isn't... about you, Seunghyun." Jiyong is reassuring, not accusing him. "He hasn't talked to us, either."

They're silent until Seunghyun lets out a shaky breath into the phone.

"It's barely been two weeks," Jiyong says gently. "He needs a lot more time and we need to give that to him."

Jiyong makes Seunghyun promise he won't try and contact Daesung.

Seunghyun isn't as good at keeping promises.

* 

* 

*  
  
Seunghyun waves off the YG rep immediately after he steps out of the car into the rain.

He still hasn't spoken to Daesung; Seunghyun got around his promise to Jiyong by setting this up through Daesung's sister, who's waiting for him at the door. 

Bora apologizes for the mess — which, as far as Seunghyun can see is just a coat draped over the back of a chair — and leads him upstairs. She stops in front of a closed door and gives it a gentle tap with one knuckle. "Daesung, your hyung stopped by to check on you." 

She gives it a moment, and continues. "Please don't get upset with him, I was the one who let him in. He's— he's standing here right now, so, if there's anything you want to say to him that you couldn't say to us, you can go ahead, I'll be in my room."

She turns to Seunghyun and mouths "thank you" before disappearing into another room down the hall.

Seunghyun takes a deep breath.

The closed door in front of him may as well be a made entirely of needles, or white-hot steel, something that could hurt him no matter how delicate a touch he used. He knows it's not repelling him, specifically, that it's designed to keep _everyone_ out, but he's spent so long associating Daesung's open door with his own comfort and reassurance that it feels like a personal attack.

"Dae." It catches in his throat, trapped, fighting with the apologies and pleads he wants to let loose. "I'm not asking you to talk to me, I just... wanted to offer, in person, since everyone else got to."

Seunghyun doesn't hear anything from inside the room, but he's spent enough time on the other side of Daesung's door to know the younger man isn't sleeping.

"That's all," he murmurs, afraid that he's pushed his boundaries too far already. "But if you need anything— I'll drop everything for you. We all will."

He didn't expect anything more than this — a one-sided conversation through a closed door — but he still can't bring himself to leave. He's spent so long being the needy one and he's desperate to return the favor.

Which, of course, means he's still the needy one. 

No wonder the words self _less_ and self _ish_ are so easy to mix up. He can't even get the goddamn feelings straight in his head.

So when the door opens, he freezes.

* 

* 

*

Daesung doesn't stay in the doorway long enough for Seunghyun to really look at him. He's wearing a white t-shirt and blue track pants, and his hair's flipping in a couple different directions. His acne is the worst Seunghyun's seen it in a long time. 

Their eyes meet for an instant before Daesung's fall to the floor, and he turns and walks back to his bed, getting under the blankets with as little movement as possible, like he's afraid his smallest action could set an apocalyptic chain of events into motion. He lies on his side with his back to the door.

The _open_ door.

Instinct takes over from there.  
  
* 

* 

*

The room isn't warm. It's stifling.

The light filtering through the drawn curtains casts everything in a dull glow. The absence of ordinary clutter is disconcerting. There's nothing on the floor, nothing on the desk. The only possibly out of place item Seunghyun can see is a bible on the nightstand.

He follows Daesung's lead of making as few superfluous movements as possible as he takes a seat in the desk chair, beside the bed.

Seunghyun sits there for a while, eyes never leaving Daesung's form under the covers, watching his body rise and fall with his breathing. After being away for so long, having to learn everything second-hand from Jiyong or the internet, it comforts him just seeing Daesung exhibit basic signs of life.

Daesung isn't going to talk to him, isn't going to tell Seunghyun what he wants. Seunghyun never told Daesung what he wanted, either, but somehow Daesung always knew how to bring him back from the darkest recesses of his head, whether it was silence, physical contact, or just being in the same room. Daesung always, always knew.

Seunghyun doesn't know.

But he's gotten this far. He has to do something.

Seunghyun shifts — slowly — from the chair to the edge of the bed, unsure how close he's allowed to get. The mattress dips under his weight and he stills, heart hammering, but Daesung doesn't react so he sits fully, hips even with Daesung's lower back, upper body turned towards him, with his left leg bent on the bed and his right foot still on the floor.

He stays like that for another minute or two, giving Daesung time to adjust to the change.

Seunghyun's hand hovers over the small part of Daesung's shoulder that isn't covered by the blanket. His body is radiating a feverish warmth. 

Christ, even his physiology joined in the fight to keep everyone away.

Seunghyun lowers his hand and splays his fingers across Daesung's shoulder.

Daesung lets out a small breath and tenses under the touch, curling into himself more.

Seunghyun turns his hand over and runs the back of his fingers along the seam of Daesung's t-shirt until he reaches his neck, trailing up to the hinge of his jaw, tucking an errant section of hair behind his ear. Seunghyun repeats the motion one more time, then slides his hand down again, around the back of his neck to brush away the sweat-slicked hair plastered to his skin.

One side of Daesung's face is mostly visible now, and even in the low light, Seunghyun sees the skin along his temple and cheekbone stretch as he squeezes his eyes shut, like Seunghyun's touch is painful.

Seunghyun lifts his hand.

"I'll stop if—"

Daesung throws back the covers, turning and all but launching himself into Seunghyun, clutching the front of his shirt and breathing hot against his chest. Seunghyun's foot on the floor is the only reason he isn't knocked completely backwards, and he wraps his arms around Daesung as tight as he can and buries his nose in his hair, saying Daesung's name over and over again against his scalp while his dongsaeng trembles and sobs.

* 

* 

*

He wakes up with his clothes sticking to his skin and a solid weight on his chest. 

Seunghyun doesn't remember falling asleep, but the room is pitch black and the light in the hallway is out.

He feels a tiny sniffle against his throat, and realizes it's not beads of sweat rolling down his neck.

He curls his fingers into Daesung's hair.

"I get it now, hyung." Seunghyun hasn't heard Daesung's voice this weak since their days as trainees.

"Get what?" Seunghyun says, or maybe he doesn't, he's too overwhelmed and grateful that Daesung actually spoke to know for sure.

"Before," he begins, twisting his fingers in the hem of Seunghyun's shirt, "I never understood how someone could"—he chokes back a sob—"how you tried to—" 

Seunghyun feels every word against his pulse when Daesung presses impossibly closer.

"But I feel so _bad_ , hyung," he whispers. "And I just want it to _stop_."

Seunghyun, his own tears now slipping out of the corners of his eyes, adjusts them so they're both on their sides. His hand finds its way back into Daesung's hair as Seunghyun props himself on his opposite elbow, and presses his lips to Daesung's brow.

Seunghyun screws his eyes shut and replaces his lips with his own forehead and moves the hand in Daesung's hair to cup face, thumb swiping over every fresh tear that falls from his eye.

"I know, Dae," he whispers, throat constricting around each word. " _God_ , I know."

* 

* *

* * *

* * 

*

Daesung tugs the blanket tighter around him and turns over, away from the sunlight poking through the blinds. 

His eyes, bleary with sleep, come to focus on the prescription bottle on his nightstand, and he groans.

He forgot to take it last night. Again.

At this rate, it'll be a decade before he can tell if it's really making a difference or not.

Daesung resolves to make his medication a morning routine instead of an evening one, and reaches for the bottle, sleepy fingers struggling to pop the cap. When he does, the pills go flying into the crevices of his sheets, and as he collects them he sets one aside for consumption.

Except it's not a pill.

It's a slip of paper, folded impossibly small.

Being much more careful with his hands this time, he unfurls it, and written in tiny, neat characters is a message:

_You're worth more and more every day, dongsaeng._  
_And if you ever need to be reminded of that, please, just come find me._  


**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the majority of this when todae was still new to me. This is not something I could write now.
> 
> I posted the first half on tumblr as a WIP not long after I wrote it (April 2015), but completing the second half was a struggle. There are fully-written scenes that didn't make the final cut, scenes I desperately wanted to include but couldn't make work no matter how hard I tried, and alternate endings I decided against.
> 
> There are parts of this I don't like. There are parts of this I love. Those feelings are the result of knowing this pairing will never be as shiny and new to me as they were two years ago.
> 
> Thanks for reading. You can talk to me here or on [tumblr](http://gdragondance.tumblr.com).


End file.
